


And That's Where I May Rest My Head Tonight

by throughtosunrise



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughtosunrise/pseuds/throughtosunrise
Summary: In the aftermath of the fight with Siff Duthar and his psychic trick of making them fight each other, Beau and Yasha have a few things they need to work out before they can sleep.





	And That's Where I May Rest My Head Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely not beta read, but episode 16 was a wild emotional ride and I needed to make myself feel better.
> 
> Title is from "Mercy of the Fallen" by Dar Williams, which is kind of my Mighty Nein song right now.

It has been a very long day, and Beau may never want to see another urn again in her life.

But that’s behind them now, or below as the case might be, down in the octagonal chamber at the bottom of this spiral staircase where they’ve made camp for the night, because they’re all hurting and exhausted and it has been a very long fucking day.

A stairwell isn’t an ideal place to bed down for an eight hour stretch, but it’s their best alternative right now so what can they do, really, but make the most of it?

It’s easy enough for Nott to curl up on one of the steps and go to sleep, one hand protectively curled around Caleb’s ankle as he dozes upright on the next step up with his head against the wall. Fjord, Jester, and Molly have also done their best to arrange their bedrolls somewhat haphazardly beside the pile of rubble from the caved-in wall. Despite will o’wisps and gelatinous cubes and creepy-ass undead maniacs, they’re all tired enough to sleep without any of that keeping them awake.

Beau can’t get those whispers out of her head, though; it’s a cacaphony of nails on metal, chafing at the inside of her skull worse than the bandage around her arm. It’s a jumble of nonsensical chatter for the most part, but the undead mage had mentioned secrets, and it isn’t like her to leave things alone without trying to pick at them for every last scrap of knowledge.

It’s… a lot to process, and she ends up pacing up the staircase in the eerie purple glow of the enchanted sconces. Fjord shifts in his sleep down below and instinctively Beau spares a quick glance in his direction, but he seems fine. It’s cool. He didn’t end up attacking his friends anyway.

She’s pissed at herself for that, to tell the truth, letting that Siff jackass fuck with her mind. She’s supposed to be better than that, smarter than that. She’s —

Her foot catches on something, and she stumbles.

“Dammit,” she mutters, and at the same time she hears a sudden sharp intake of breath and a hand reaches up to catch her by the arm before she loses her balance.

“Oh.” It’s Yasha’s voice, soft and halting, and her fingers tighten briefly around Beau’s arm before letting go. “Um. Sorry.”

Beau shakes her head. “Nah, it’s cool. I didn’t, like wake you or anything, right?” It’s only now that she processes how Yasha’s sitting on the steps, her greatsword across her knees and a whetstone resting by her feet. “Right.”

The light in here is low enough that she doesn’t really bother to pretend she isn’t looking Yasha over intently, but hey, she has good reason. It wasn’t all that long ago that Yasha was unconscious on the stone floor of the chamber below, and Beau, safe to say, was not a fan of that sight.

Before she can say anything, though, Yasha clears her throat and shifts slightly, ducking her head as if she’s inspecting the edge of her blade for nicks. “Are you, uh, okay? After that whole fight, I mean.”

“Me?” Beau grins, and lowers herself — slowly, because everything still kind of hurts a lot — onto the step beside Yasha. “I’m fine, don’t worry. Thanks for not hitting me, by the way. That kind of would’ve sucked, you know? ‘cause you’re really good at hitting things. It’s pretty impressive.”

Yasha laughs like she’s not sure how to respond to that. “It helped that Molly did that thing of his. I couldn’t really see you to hit you.”

Great, so now Beau owes him one. Of course she does.

“And thanks for not hitting me either,” Yasha continues. “Just because, well, you’re… pretty good at it too.”

Beau nods. “That would’ve really fucking sucked,” she says, and did that come out a little more vehemently than she meant it to? Whoops. She reaches a hand up and rubs at the back of her head, like it’ll make the lingering sensation of those secrets crawling around inside her skull go away.

“It wouldn’t have been your fault,” Yasha says, and Beau shakes her head.

“Nah, but ‘someone made me do it’ still sounds like such a bullshit excuse.”

“I know,” Yasha replies, and takes a deep breath before repeating, “I know. How about we agree not to do that again?”

“What, the going after each other part, or the whole thing?” asks Beau, because she doesn’t know how to not be a smartass. “I mean, fighting with you is some pretty cool shit.”

“The part where you climbed me like —” Yasha’s raised her head to look at Beau, but that’s as far as she gets into the sentence before she clears her throat and ducks her head again. “That was pretty cool, yeah. You jumping into our boat was, too. I liked — um. Yeah, it was cool.”

How is somebody who’s so much of a badass in battle this shy outside of it? Beau doesn’t know, but it’s ridiculous amounts of adorable. “Your shoulder okay? Like, from me stepping on it?” She reaches up and pretends to brush a little bit of dirt off said shoulder.

There’s a brief moment where Yasha seems to freeze up at the contact, but then seems to relax into it. “It’s fine,” she assures Beau. “I think it hurt that thing more than it hurt me.”

“Yeah, that was kind of the idea,” Beau says. “Hurting it, I mean. Not you.”

Yasha looks over at her and half smiles. “Good to know. It’s fun watching you beat up on people, but… _other_ people.”

There’s a twinge of something sharp in Beau’s chest as she takes that in, and it makes her feel more vulnerable than she ever likes to feel. “Other people,” she says fiercely. “Not you.” Her voice echoes a little bit off of the stairwell walls, enough to make her aware that she didn’t sound as nonchalant about that as she meant to.

Her hand is still on Yasha’s shoulder; she hadn’t realized that until now, when Yasha’s hand comes up to rest lightly on top of her own and, almost uncertainly, gives it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you. I appreciate it. And… the same goes for you.”

“And okay, the rest of the party too,” Beau says with an overly dramatic sigh, because it’s too late to pretend she wasn’t being flippant but what the hell, at least she put in the effort. Yasha laughs at that, just a brief, low chuckle, but it’s warm and delighted and so much of a contrast to her usual diffidence that Beau feels like she just got let in on a secret. Come to think of it, Beau isn’t sure she’s ever actually heard Yasha laugh before tonight, but she could definitely stand to hear it a lot more often.

“It’s okay, Beau,” Yasha tells her. “I won’t tell anyone else you said that about them.”

“Cool.” Beau flashes her a grin, but now that Yasha is actually looking at her, now that they’re both too worn out to spend much energy on maintaining masks and she can see exhaustion and a hint of something haunted in Yasha’s mismatched eyes, she just… she can’t look away. “I mean, we should probably get some sleep, but…”

“Yeah.” Yasha frowns and reaches up with her free hand to rub at the back of her head, right about the same place where Beau can’t stop feeling the crawling itch of Siff’s whispered secrets inside her own head. 

Yasha had it worse than her, Beau realizes. Siff might have turned them against each other briefly, but he’d done something to Yasha with his psychic abilities that had knocked her right the fuck out.

Yeah. Beau can absolutely say that she did not enjoy seeing her crumple to the floor like that.

“I get that. Kind of noisy in there, huh?” 

Yasha lets out a long, slow, and distinctly annoyed breath. “This sucks.”

“Right?” Never mind acting detached now; not like anyone else is awake to notice that Beau’s voice is softer and less forceful than it usually is. “I kind of want to claw my own brain out.”

“Don’t do that,” Yasha says, and continues in a faint and nearly inaudible rush, “I like your brain where it is.”

Oh, there is definitely a hint of a blush going on there beneath that incredibly pale skin and it’s super fucking cute, even in this weird arcane purple light.

“Kinda do too.” Beau idly runs her thumb back and forth across Yasha’s shoulder, and there isn’t even anything flirtatious about it; she just wants to give Yasha something to focus on that isn’t a thousand incomprehensible and maddening whispers in the back of her mind. “Just gotta keep from getting stuck inside it when it’s full of weird shit like this.”

Yasha nods and catches her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s hard sometimes.”

Beau wonders what else gets Yasha stuck inside her own head sometimes, if that’s part of whatever hell the Stormlord pulled her out of. “Having something else to focus on? Usually helps. The, uh, people I studied with had all kinds of fancy techniques for that but the simple version is to just start with what’s right in front of you, like stuff you know you can definitely sense. Y’know, can you hear it, touch it…”

She’s genuinely just trying to help now, which is why it catches her completely by surprise when Yasha just leans forward and kisses her. It's not a great kiss, honestly. Yasha's so hesitant, which Beau thinks is a total trip considering how hard Yasha was going at that undead asshole just a couple of hours ago, and the angle is a little bit awkward so they're going to bump chins if Beau tilts her head back just a touch, but fuck if she isn't going all lightheaded anyway because _Yasha is kissing her_. 

Then she's pulling back and Beau wants to object, but Yasha's looking at her with a tiny crooked smile on her face and that faint adorable blush rising in her cheeks. Yeah, okay, she's totally cool just looking at this for a while, like until it pushes the memory of Yasha swinging that giant sword at her out of her mind. 

“That's… good advice,” Yasha says, reaching up to fiddle with the beads at the end of one of her braids. “See, I told you I like your brain where it is.”

Considering where Beau's brain is metaphorically going right now, it's amazing she can even come up with as much of a response as the dazed “Uhhhhhhhhh” that comes out of her mouth. She's pretty sure she looks about as goofy as she sounds, too.

The amount of fucks she has to give about that is way less than zero though, because now Yasha's set her sword aside and shifted closer, so her knee is brushing Beau's. “This is better than hitting you,” she says, and then looks kind of mortified. “Sorry, that was — I —”

Beau just leans forward this time and kisses her again. It's a light kiss — this isn't her trying to call the shots here, because the last thing she wants is for Yasha to bail out. She is, in fact, letting Yasha take the lead, and there's something heady and electrifying in that. This woman, who could break her in half without even trying, is brushing her cheek with feather-light fingertips and Beau's pretty sure she would do anything Yasha wants if it means she'll keep that up.

She'd almost forgotten about her hand on Yasha's shoulder until Yasha lifts it and twists her own hand to slide it beneath Beau's so that their fingers are interlaced. When Beau squeezes her hand gently Yasha returns the gesture with less hesitation, and there's so much strength in that sword-calloused hand, a firm and assertive pressure that makes Beau's knees buckle even if she is already sitting down. Shit, if just holding hands is going to do this to her, she might actually die if they end up having sex.

But that can wait; this creepy-ass research facility is a shitty place for that anyway. Right now she's fine with getting to know the taste of Yasha's mouth, feeling Yasha's hand warm against hers in the chill of this stone stairwell, and oh — that thing Yasha's doing now, cupping her other hand around the back of Beau's neck to keep her close, that can keep happening too.

This time when they pull apart some of the haunted look is gone from Yasha's eyes, and the small smile on her face is about the Yasha-equivalent of the giant dorky grin splitting Beau's own. 

“You were right.” Yasha's running her fingers through the short hair at the base of Beau's skull to amazing, spine-tingling effect now. “It feels a little bit quieter in there.”

“Oh. Yeah.” It's going to take a little time before Beau remembers how to string together multisyllabic words again. “Me too. Wow.” Whether it's the kissing or feeling Yasha's fingers in her hair, her head is feeling quieter too.

Yasha starts worrying at her bottom lip, and Beau really kind of wants to kiss her again but this is actually an adorable sight and she's down with just enjoying it. “But maybe, I mean, um, I was thinking…”

If this had been Caleb or anyone else in the group Beau would have been yelling at them to spit it out already, which means…

She knows what it means. But actually putting the thought into words is something she's not ready to do yet. Instead she just looks down at their joined hands, fascinated by the contrast in their skin, waiting patiently for Yasha to find the right words without feeling self-conscious about it.

“It's just… we really need sleep,” Yasha says finally. “So maybe, um… maybe you should stay here?”

Beau gets where she's going with this and nods. “Gotta make sure it stays quiet in there,” she says and taps Yasha's forehead lightly with one finger. “Sure. Yeah. I can do that.”

Yasha looks relieved as she gestures at the step below them; without a word or even a suggestive smirk Beau slides into the space between Yasha's knees and settles back against her as Yasha wraps her cloak around both of them. 

“Thanks,” she hears Yasha murmur against the top of her head, followed by a light kiss behind her right ear.

Beau lets the shiver of delight make its way down her spine before she answers, “Any time,” then closes her eyes as Yasha wraps her arms around Beau from behind. (Molly was right. It really is like nothing she's ever experienced, steady and solid and gentle all at once.) The itch in the back of her head is fading; picking out what's real from the noise seems easier, especially when she can feel Yasha's even, slow breathing against her back. 

Yeah, it's definitely been a long, long day, but as she relaxes into Yasha's arms and stops trying to fight for consciousness Beau is pretty sure that sleep has been particularly well earned tonight.


End file.
